Come and join thousands around the world that are becoming part of this movement of consecration to God. The number is increasing each day.
The spirit of God is calling His bride:
“Live with me for many days. You must not be promiscuous or belong to any other men and I will act the same way towards you.” Hosea 3:3 CSB
We are coming before the Lord for no other purpose, then to search for Him in obedience as He requested. The invitation is for anyone who is or wants to become part of His bride. We are to come before the Lord for a while and be just His.
“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”
Joshua 3:5 EST“Consecrate yourself and be holy for I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 20:7 ESV
“For it is written: be holy because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16
Jesus’ favored response: “it is written”.
16.“… “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.”
17. Therefore, come out of them and be separate says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you.” 2 Corinthians 6
God promises that He will dwell in and with them and He will be their God but there is a condition for that. Come out, separate and do not to touch anything unclean! This is New Testament! Consecrate yourselves then I will come in your midst! God cannot live in the midst of sin.
How do we start the process of consecration?
First: “Come out!” Withdraw yourself for awhile, go into your closet before the Lord! It’s a step of taking action.
Second: Separate! We are in this world, but not from this world.
Third: Sanctify! Sanctify yourselves! This is cleansing through confession and repentance. Step 3 is the actual meat in the sandwich.
Forth: God shows up and reveals himself to you.
In John 13:8 Jesus said to Peter:
“If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.” NKJ
“Dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all the filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1 KJV
Here Paul talks to the church, not to the unbelievers. Some think that after they got saved they don’t need cleansing anymore. Forgiveness of sins and cleansing are two different things. God has forgiven the sins of the whole world but not all will end up with Him in heaven. Jesus has forgiven those that crucified Him but they didn’t have a change of heart. The Bible says clearly without holiness we will not see Him. Nothing unclean will enter His kingdom. You can find more about that Here.
Paul says it clearly: let us cleanse ourselves!
He includes himself too. Even Paul, the great apostle, needs to go through cleansing. He doesn’t tell them “my beloved, cleanse yourselves” as if he didn’t need it. You will never reach a level where you are done cleansing yourself. Paul continued to cleanse himself. “Let us cleanse ourselves!”
The same way, which one of you will ever say “I’ve been given a bath after I was born and I don’t need to take one anymore” or “I washed myself in January I don’t need to do it again until next year in December, I am clean.” This would be absurd! Why do we think, we can go through life without spiritual cleansing and claim we are good Christians? This is as well absurd if you think well. If we don’t cleanse ourselves we spiritually stink!
The same way we need to wash our physical bodies daily or frequently enough, we need to cleanse ourselves daily because we live in a dirty world and our soul gets contaminated. Other translations say “let’s cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit”. Other translations say “let’s cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit”. We get defiled every day from our own sin and flesh and from the world around us.
The Why and the How.
Why do we need it? Why are we supposed to cleanse ourselves?
Paul says “so we can perfect holiness.”
What for? Is it optional? The Bible doesn’t give any other option. It’s the only way to enter His Kingdom.
Sanctification is done through continuous repentance and cleansing through the word of God and the blood of Jesus.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The need and requirement of cleansing: without cleansing we have no part of Him, He says:
“Dear friends (so again he talks to the church, not to those that need to be saved). Now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known this is for the future revelation, but we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:23
“Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.” Revelation 22:11 NKJ
“…nothing unclean will ever enter it (the Kingdom of God)…” Revelation 21:27 ESV
Now, all who have this hope of entering the Kingdom of Heaven, who want to be His Bride and to be with Jesus, they “purify themselves just as He is pure!” As the above verse says: let the holy continue to be holy, it is a continuous action.
What do we learn from all these Scriptures?
Cleansing is not something that happens automatically without our cooperation. It doesn’t say our sins have been washed once and that’s it. You can’t continue to leave as you want. No! The sins that were forgiven at the cross is only the starting point. It is the gate to a life of holiness and purification. From now on, we are to pursue righteousness and holiness through continuous cleansing.
Let’s not deceives ourselves. The Word is straight forward! Those that do not live a life of purification and holiness will not see God! Nothing unclean will ever enter His gates. It talks about the kingdom of God.
“…the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready: it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure — for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” Revelation 19:7,8
Are you producing deeds or fruits of righteousness or the fruits of the flesh?
Ephesians 5:25-26 says Christ is cleansing His church continuously “so that He might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” but not without her will and cooperation. He doesn’t force anyone to become His Bride and it does not happen magically. It is her part to keep herself pure and just for Him.
You have to come and present yourself for the cleansing. You bring the dirt and He will bring the water!
“He gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good. Titus 2:14
We must be eager to produce good fruits if we have been saved and not continue in sin as we were before. A good way to avoid sinning is cleansing. You cannot sin if you are too busy cleansing yourself.
“You are to be holy to Me because I the Lord am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.“ Leviticus 20:26 NIV
In conclusion, what is Consecration?
It is separation for sanctification. We sanctify ourselves through continued confession and cleansing.
Cleansing is done through prayer by asking God to wash our sins and remove any seed of wickedness, any sinful thought, fleshly desire etc so we can make more room for His righteousness to dwell in us. The more you’ll pray the more you’ll figure out what you need to cleanse your heart from. By doing this we submit to His will. If we submit to His will, he promised the devil will flee from us. Cleansing is maintained by dipping into His Word, meditating on it and praying it. Our prayer should follow the word that we read, and not our own desires. This way we abide in the word and we submit to God in holy fear.
Why daily repentance?
Not only that we live in a sinful world, but these days are also evil specific to the end times. We are constantly bombarded with sin and weakness from all directions. Things that the Bible clearly identify as sinful or abominations are not considered that way anymore, even by most churches. The darkness around us which has penetrated even the church should prompt the real body of Christ towards repentance even more.
For that reason we have to make confession and repentance a daily habit. If you forgot what sin is anymore and what not, if you got confused by the modern days science, society or even the modern churches, start reading your Bible and refresh your mind with what God considers sin.
Don’t collect filthiness! Don’t carry sin from one moment to another, from one day to the next, from one week to the next month, which then turn into years and so on. This is what brings the hardening of the heart, blindness and eventually spiritual death.
Start practicing repentance daily.
Use it as needed! Don’t worry, you can’t overdose on repentance. Don’t wait to repent until you commit ‘big” sins. Repent of small things. You got angry at someone that did something unjust to you, a bad thought crossed your mind, you lost your patience with your children and yelled at them, someone said something rude and you reacted accordingly, you did something just to get back to someone, the little white lies, getting angry in traffic, etc, these are just some examples.
The list continues as the days goes. Anything that is contrary to the word and does not reflect God’s character needs to be confessed and renounced. Repentance means confessing and renouncing. You will find that once you start practicing this, your awareness will increase, God will feel closer to you, His guidance will be clearer and His presence will be more tangible. We should confess it right in there and repent. Your spirit will awaken more and your spiritual skills and senses will start to develop more.
What about my emotions?
They have to submit to God. The more you practice repentance you will find that emotions, which are part of flesh, will become less intense because you submit them to the spirit of God which you obey.
Where would we be now if Jesus stopped to analyze His emotions? What must have He felt when the disciples abandoned Him, when Peter denied Him, when Judah sold Him, when they punched Him in the face, ripped His clothes, etc. He submitted them to the will of the Father.
The more I discover, the more I realize how far we are from the truth, from the straight pass, from His will and from His Kingdom. When we read the word we realize how far we are from what’s written. This is not rocket science. These are things easy to understand. Only if we humble before Him and recognize we are “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” Rev.3;17.
Repentance brings humility and then it turns into righteousness. Righteousness is a strong weapon against the devil and the kingdom of darkness! Once you start practicing it, you will experience more victory in your personal life.
“Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless, but sin overthrows the wicked.” Proverbs 13:6 ESV
“For you bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover him with favor as with a shield.” Psalm 5:12
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